Clay had his phone out and dialed Jordan’s number. He answered pretty quickly, and Clay explained the situation. Jordan was at his office in town, a couple of blocks away, and said he’d head over now.
Atlas could barely stand still the entire wait. He was tapping his foot a million miles an hour, then he was on his feet and pacing the entire diner. He was practically bouncing when Jordan finally arrived with Wren beside him.
“I hope it’s okay I came too. I was with Jordan when you called, and I couldn’t miss helping capture the bad guy,” Wren said with determination.
“The more eyes, the better. You guys can point out anyone who looks suspicious wearing a black cap and gray hoodie,” Atlas replied.
Jordan quickly booted up his laptop and pulled up the recording. “We usually blur out everyone’s faces but Wren’s for the vlog, but I still have the raw footage. I mostly focused on Wren, but there are still some clips of the audience in the shot.”
“Let’s hope our stalker is in one of those shots,” Clay said solemnly.
Jordan started the film right when we sat in our seats. As he said, the camera had Wren as the focus, but the lens was wide enough that Atlas was visible too. Even on the screen, Atlas was glowing with happiness. He excitedly looked around the place, then turned to me, and his expression softened.
I’d seen that look on him first-hand countless times, but to watch him look at me on screen was another thing. It felt like I was invading an intimate moment.
And the look onmyface? Was that how I always looked when I saw Atlas? I blushed at how sappy my expression was. Thankfully, Jordan said he’d blur out all our faces.
I should be watching the back for the stalker, but I had a hard time taking my eyes away from Atlas. I saw the moment he stiffened and looked behind him. I remembered it happening in real time and had thought he was being cautious of the crowd, but if I’d known his sudden unease was from prying eyes that should never be allowed near Atlas, I would have torn the crowd apart to find the stalker.
“There,” Atlas called. Jordan pausedthe video and finagled with the laptop somehow to zoom in to where Atlas was pointing.
A man was standing in the crowd behind a loving couple. He flickered in and out of view between the couple when they parted, and we got a clear view of his clothing: a black cap and gray hoodie.
“Is that him?” I asked urgently. It would be huge if we captured his face on camera.
“I think so,” Atlas muttered, “he’s keeping his head down, so his cap is blocking his face.”
“Play it frame by frame,” Wren told Jordan, who obliged and moved the video what seemed like a millisecond at a time.
What seemed like minutes went by, and the stalker’s face was blocked the entire time. Atlas looked behind him in the video, and the stalker disappeared into the crowd for a second before reappearing between the same couple, but the infuriating cap still covered his face.
I was starting to think this was another dead end, but right before the stalker turned to leave, his head lifted enough to get a clear view of him. It was only a single second before he turned and left, but that was all we needed.
We got him.
Jordan rewound the frame to the one second of the clear shot of his face and blew up the image so his face took up the entire screen.
“Yes, that’s him!” Atlas exclaimed. He turned to mewith obvious excitement on his face. I squeezed his hand and beamed at him.
We were getting somewhere.
The image was blurry, considering the man had only been a tiny face in the background of the video. Clay said he’d run it through the facial recognition software when he returned to the station and give us an update. He said he’d also check the database to see if he could get a hit on the guy, but that was only if he’d committed a crime previously.
“We’ll catch him,” Clay reassured us. Atlas nodded and snuggled into my side as we watched the three of them leave.
“We’regoingto catch this guy. It’s going to be okay,” I repeated when I closed the door and locked it behind them. All the energy Atlas had earlier seemed to have been zapped out of him. He leaned most of his body weight on me and peered up from under my arm.
“Can we go back to bed and cuddle?” he asked, looking so freaking vulnerable. I’d do anything to wash away that look and return his smile.
Chapter Twenty
ATLAS
We made our way upstairs and into our bedroom. Maybe it was presumptuous of me to consider Hector’s room as mine too, but I hadn’t slept in the other room since we’d gotten together, and if Hector allowed it, I planned to keep it that way.
I’d slowly started moving my clothes over, too, and he didn’t comment on it. He had so much space in his closet since he didn’t have a wide variety of clothes to start with, though I did notice he’d cleaned out some of his drawers for me too.
Technically, I could have kept my things in the other room—it had been mine, after all—but it was what this move represented. I liked that I was sliding into his life, and he was making space for me. It really cemented that I wasn’t just his roommate anymore, and that this wonderful, kind man was really mine.
